WeShare
Practice this beginner-friendly profitability case interview question from McKinsey in the Real Estate sector. Includes detailed problem prompt, clarifying questions, structured framework, and expert recommendation. Part of ProHub's 835+ consulting case library.
ProHub Comment
This is a classic profitability case in the flex workspace industry, testing the candidate's ability to diagnose why a high-revenue company with strong historical growth is unprofitable. The case requires analyzing both revenue dynamics (pricing, volume, customer mix) and cost structure (rent arbitrage, operational expenses). The pandemic context creates a compelling external factor that forces candidates to think about occupancy rates and demand volatility.
Estimated Time
16 minutes
Difficulty
Easy
Source
PeterK
40
/ 100
Your client is a shared office space provider – WeShare. WeShare offers office spaces to freelancers, entrepreneurs, and companies in 10 major cities across the U.S. and has 25k members. The company generates $160M in sales annually but is unprofitable. They hired your team to help them break-even in 18 months.
Clarifying Information
- Before the pandemic the client aggressively grew, pushing its top-line (sales) by 50% every year. In 2020 though its sales decreased
- Most of revenue comes from renting out flex working space. The client also offers office management services (e.g. room booking system, office supply management) and office design consulting
- The client doesn’t plan to expand outside of the U.S.
- Top-5 players in this space capture 71% of the market (incl. WeWork that controls 47%). The client isn’t part of top-5